Accessibility statement

Accessibility statement for Business-on-Sea

This accessibility statement applies to www.businessonsea.co.uk

This website is run by the Economic Development and Skill Team at Southend-on-Sea City Council. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts
  • zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
  • navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

How accessible this website is

We have upgraded this website to an improved platform that has been designed with accessibility in mind.

We have systematically gone through the content on this website, and continue to do so, to ensure text is in plain English, free from jargon and of a reading level lower than secondary education (WCAG 3.1.5). The majority of this website complies with this, however some policy documents or planning applications do not meet this criteria.

All buttons, images and banners have colour contrast that adheres to the accessibility regulations.

All videos uploaded after 17 June 2020 have captions and/or a transcript.

We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:

  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text

Feedback and contact information

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

We’ll consider your request and get back to you within 5 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with this website

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: economicd@southend.gov.uk

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Contacting us by phone or visiting us in person

We provide a text relay service for people who are D/deaf, hearing impaired or have a speech impediment.

Our offices have audio induction loops.

Find out how to contact us

Technical information about this website’s accessibility

Southend-on-Sea City Council is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons.

  • contrast levels are set and not able to be altered. However in re-designing this website, we have ensured that all navigation and body content has colour contrast compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Some text is written in language that is not plain English. We are reviewing all content and by September 2020, all on-page content will comply with WCAG 2.1 AA.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

We have already relaunched the website on to an improved and accessible platform.

The roadmap to becoming fully accessible is as follows

  • relaunch of site to fix back-end accessibility issues (complete)
  • ensuring body copy of web pages are in plain English
  • removing non-essential PDFS and placing content on webpages where possible (complete)
  • ensuring new PDFS created after December 2020 are accessible
  • ensuring new videos have subtitles

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was prepared in November 2020.